John Gotti's Son Is Freed on Bail Of $10 Million

By JOSEPH BERGER

Published: October 2, 1998

WHITE PLAINS, Oct. 1—
Nine months after he was jailed on a welter of racketeering charges, John A. Gotti, the son of the Gambino crime family boss, today walked out the front door of the Federal courthouse here as a theoretically free man, but one who will have to spend the months until and during his trial under strict house arrest.

Bouncing down the courthouse steps, the 34-year-old Mr. Gotti, dressed in a black turtleneck, black jeans and white sneakers, forced his way past cameras, walked into a bearhug from his brother-in-law, Carmine Agnello, and then slipped into a white Mercedes driven by his sister, Victoria. He was to be taken to his $700,000 home in Oyster Bay on Long Island where his wife and four children were preparing a party.

''The balloons are blown up, the decorations are hung and I suspect the food will be Italian,'' said one of his five lawyers, Gerald L. Shargel.

Mr. Gotti's release on bail came after two grueling weeks of negotiations between his lawyers and Federal prosecutors who were determined to keep Mr. Gotti behind bars, even after Judge Barrington D. Parker Jr. of United States District Court agreed to his release. Although two dozen of Mr. Gotti's relatives and friends posted $10 million worth of homes and businesses as collateral for his bail, prosecutors subjected them to intense scrutiny to make certain that none were bought with criminal earnings.

Even then, Mr. Gotti's lawyers had to fight until the last moment over $2 million of the bail bond that is secured by an estate owned by Ms. Gotti, a novelist, and her husband, Mr. Agnello. Mr. Agnello is regarded by Federal law enforcement authorities as a senior crime family apparatchik. The Government finally consented to Mr. Gotti's release even as it undertakes a fresh inspection of Mr. Agnello's tax returns for the past decade.

Still, to Mr. Gotti's ample crowd of supporters -- many of them bull-necked young men in pressed jeans and white sneakers, but others elderly friends so loyal they were willing to put up their homes to guarantee his bail -- it was the day they have been waiting for. ''We're happy to see young John is going home,'' said his lawyer, Bruce Cutler. ''Everybody's excited; everybody's happy, and this is the beginning in the battle to clear John's name.''

As Mr. Gotti walked to his car he was asked how he felt and he said, ''Great,'' and then he was asked what he was looking forward to and he replied ''my children.''

Under conditions negotiated between the Government and defense lawyers, Mr. Gotti will be confined to his Oyster Bay house around the clock. He will have to wear a electronic ankle bracelet that tracks his movements, and will only be able to see visitors on an approved list. His calls will be monitored and a security guard he must pay for will be posted outside his house at all hours.

Mr. Gotti has been accused of extorting payments from the Scores strip club in Manhattan and defrauding people who bought prepaid telephone cards, charges that could result in a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. His father, John J. Gotti, 58, is spending a life sentence in a Federal penitentiary in Illinois on charges of murder. He recently had surgery for throat cancer.

Prosecutors said they regard the younger Mr. Gotti, known as Junior, as the acting boss of the Gambino family in his father's absence and have fought to keep him in jail.

Mr. Gotti's trial is scheduled for early January. His lawyers have said they were eager to spring him from jail so they could consult on defense strategy without the technical difficulties of visiting him at the Westchester County Jail in Valhalla, where has been held since his arrest in January. According to a ruling today by Federal Magistrate Mark D. Fox, who is handling the details of the bail agreement, Mr. Gotti will have to apply for visits to his lawyers' offices in midtown Manhattan if he wants to meet with other defendants in the complex case.

It was evident by the way Mr. Gotti walked into the courtroom today that a deal had been reached. For the first time in three court sessions, Mr. Gotti smiled, his eyes glinting merrily behind gray glasses. He waved at his sisters -- Victoria and Angela -- and at his longtime personal lawyer, Richard Rehbock, and he patted his stomach, chortling about the weight he had apparently lost during his imprisonment.

Seated in the jury box and two spectator benches were the two dozen people who had put up their homes as collateral for the bail. Mr. Gotti's lawyers have repeatedly sought to portray them as humble working people devoted to Mr. Gotti.

Mr. Cutler suggested that it was important to Mr. Gotti that it not seem as if he was so desperate to get out of jail that he was forced to rely on friends' generosity. ''The dignity is very important to him,'' he said.

As the hearing began, Mr. Shargel told Judge Fox that ''it's been a long and difficult process but I'm happy to report to you that we have raised in excess of $10 million in collateral supported by real property.'' He conceded, however, that there was still an unresolved matter.

Mr. Agnello and Victoria Gotti own an estate in Old Westbury valued at $4 million that they have offered as surety and until recently was part of the $10 million collateral. Of that amount, parcels worth $1.5 million are registered in Miss Gotti's name and some of the remainder is owned jointly with Mr. Agnello.

Government prosecutors evidently did not want to accept any parcels in Mr. Agnello's name alone, questioning the legitimacy of their financing. But they agreed to accept $2 million in parcels owned exclusively or shared by Miss Gotti, forcing the Gotti team in recent days to scramble for additional collateral from friends and neighbors.

Today, Vincent Heintz, a Government prosecutor, asked for one additional proviso: the right to inspect the tax returns of Mr. Agnello, who owns several business involved in automobile salvage and parts, to see if his contributions to Miss Gotti's part of the property were legitimate. Judge Fox gave the lawyers until next Thursday to inspect Mr. Agnello's tax records.

In an interview, Mr. Rehbock, the longtime Gotti lawyer, ridiculed the prosecutorial demands, saying that Mr. Agnello, through his automobile enterprises, ''made more money than God every year.''

Photo: John A. Gotti, the son of the Gambino crime family boss, sat in the passenger seat of a car driven by his sister, Victoria Gotti, as they tried to pull away from the Federal courthouse in White Plains yesterday. (Joyce Dopkeen/The New York Times)(pg. B5)